Tere!

This time the article is about sick leave.

Maybe for some people it’s unfamiliar with it (because in Japan it is for sure.)

No worries even if you are unfamiliar with it, I’ll explain it.

The sick leave is a long-term paid leave due to sickness. In Estonia, though it depends on the work environment or style, it is quite common to work at home when you caught a cold for instance. One of my (Estonian) colleagues who works at part time caught a cold the other day and worked at home. I think this is one of the good points to be an office worker.

In Japan, according to my friends, they need to use their annual leaves when they caught a cold, which never happens in Estonia (as far as I know). Then, what about the hospital stay in Estonia? The sick leave is used for it.

Like the annual leave in Estonia the sick leave also limits the number of days that you can get, which is approximately 6 months for office workers.* You need a proper document for the leave but also can get benefit from Haigekassa (the Estonian health insurance organisation) and your company.

(*Check this website for more details. I definitely ommited the information.)

Here are three items for my case with the sick leave.

1) The unissued sick leave document

On the 31st of December 2019, at the final talk with my doctor he promised to issue the sick leave document. In Japan the first three days of the new year (the first to third of January) are national holidays but in Estonia/Europe they start working from the second. My company started 2020 on the third. However, everything started from the sixth because our boss couldn’t come owing to the cold.

Though it had been a week since January started, netiher my boss or our accountant nor I couldn’t see anything on our State Portal. Then my boss and I called the hospital, who said there was some kind of problem on Haigekassa’s system or something. This is actually a negative point of Estonia.

Any procedures online will be delayed sicne everything is digitalised in Estonia.

Eventually it was already the third week of 2020 when my boss could contact my doctor’s secretary.

Jesus, it took a fortnight to get the sick leave document.

Next day, both my boss and I could check the sick leave document on our State Portal.

Soon after the sick leave document was issued, the system worked so quickly.

I got the benefit on the next day my sick leave document was issued.

In order to get this benefit, you need to register your bank account beforehand on State Portal. Be careful – you can register only one account (= one account per person).

The calculation system is written in the following section.

2) Calculation of the sick leave with two years

In my case although I was officially released from te hospital on the 31st of December 2019, the sick leave document had the date 2nd of Januaru 2020, which means that I had two years in the document (2019 and 2020).

Haigekassa provides you with 70% of the social tax from the previous calendar year according to the number of days that you were in the hospital. The picture below is my actual sick leave document.

The first row of the table shows the benefit for the period that I extended to stay in the hospital (13 days). I was curious because in 2018 I worked at part time and in the half of October and November in 2019 I worked at full time so the social tax that I paid might be different. However, since my sick leave documents had the same number for the social tax, I guess it doesn’t matter whether your sick leave ended in the new year or within the year. Only the starting date seems to be considered. In other words, if your sick leave documents started in 2019 and ended in 2020, because it started in 2019, your benefit is calculated based on the social tax in 2018.

Also as seen in the image above, the third row shows 11 days but you can count 19 days based on the period in the second column. This is because you cannot get the benefit for the first three days (in my case the second to the fourth of December) and your company should provide you with the benefit for five days (the first four to eight days, meaning the fifth to the ninth of December in my case). Thus Haigekassa will give you the benefit based on the period from the ninth to the end of your leave.

In 2018 I worked at part time as mentioned and since I expected that my benefit wouldn’t be that a lot,

Jasus Christ, such a small amount money!!!!

weren’t my words or I had no damage. It was just good to know how much I could get.

3) Expense of the hospital stay

Finally, how much did I pay for the hospital stay for one month?

It cost 0€.

Usually, it costs up to 2.50€ per day and up 25€ per stay but it was an emergency in my case so I didn’t even get any bills and pay at all.

Actually, I still wonder if I do evrything correctly… Even if I have to pay for it, it’s not too much like a hospital stay in Japan. There wouldn’t be any financial issue on my side. (The thing is that since it costs a lot to stay in the hospital in Japan, my mam was worried about my finance.) When I was told to stay in the hospital the psychiatrist said it would cost a bit but there’s nothing (yet). I also asked Haigekassa but they told me to ask the hospital that I was staying and they didn’t deduct the stay fee as giving the benefit. I’m just lucky that I don’t have to pay for it.

In Estonia the medical stuff is way cheaper than in Japan.

I’m pretty sure this is not the major or universal topic but at least you could get some ideas regarding the medical side in Estonia and the sick leave. As for the family doctor, I’ll write another article in the future.

Aitäh! 🙂